So it's been crickets in here as my truck sat n collected tree sap for a couple months. I've had a few life events happen and it kind of sidelined my work on it. My last update was when I got the heads back on n went over everything. Truck really wasn't running well, was running hot and pissing antifreeze all over the bay. Ended up seeing a head bolt leaking so I tore it back down and re did it.
This time I got some copper coat and ARP head studs to help fight the issues.
Tore it down and found that I had one of the head gaskets on wrong:
Notice the cooling jackets are both at the back side of the block, which is incorrect n caused it to run hot n shitty.
Fixed that and applied the copper coat when reassembled.
As for the head studs, I got them torqued down to about 101lbs in the 3 phase torqing sequence. Used the permatex white ish this time instead of the arp stuff for the lower bolts.
After all this, it seems to be running back normal. Temp stayed at 185 -200 on my test drive so I'm thinking all set there.
No leaks yet. The only thing I'm chasing right now is some oil blow by out of my breathers. Researching catch can set up as I've read that may help my issue.
Over all its back in driving condition and just few more things to sort out. Feels good to have it back on road since it's just about a year since I started on this project.
Hopefully have some more on it in next few months.